Extra-time, the cup final crooking its finger at him like a hot honey across the dancefloor.

Three yards out, an open goal. The kind of tap-in a striker in his kind of form could normally put away in his sleep.

And McKay must score…

Except, he didn’t.

In the mayhem of Easter Road, surrounded on three sides by Hearts punters screaming for offside, with white shirts chucking themselves desperately in his direction, with the world opening up before him, Caley Thistle’s ace marksman froze.

It was like he was wearing diver’s boots. In quicksand. Trying to boot a medicine ball.

He just couldn’t poke the damn thing over the line.

He scuffed it against a sliding defender. Hearts keeper Jamie MacDonald got back to parry the rebound. Andrew Shinnie hurled himself into an overhead kick that flashed over the bar.

Moments like that don’t come often in a player’s career or a club’s history.

Billy McKay must have lain in bed last night wishing, wishing, wishing he could turn back time so his would come again.

Half an hour after time-up — and still looking dazed — the Northern Ireland cap admitted: “I want to rerun it, to see it again. I don’t know why I took a touch or if it got stuck under my feet.

“That’s why there is nothing you can say to Philip Roberts for missing the penalty in the shootout — it can happen to anyone, so there’s no way anyone can hold grudges.

“We’ve had an amazing season and we just need to put this behind us and kick on.

“We’re at St Mirren in the league on Wednesday and then we’re in the Scottish Cup next weekend. There is still so much to achieve.”

McKay had been foiled by the keeper in the first half after racing through one-on-one.

He’d craned to reach a teasing free-kick soon after, only to deny his onrushing skipper Richie Foran a simple header if he’d heard the shout.

Two misses that would have been long forgotten if only he’d made it third time lucky.

He didn’t though. And even though he had the stones to stride up and bury a penalty in the shootout that followed, you always had the nagging feeling, in that incredible six-yard box scramble, Caley Thistle’s dreams had been dashed. And sure enough, with the last of 10 spot-kicks, substitute Roberts blasted high into the cold Edinburgh night air and it was Hearts who went through instead.

To be fair, who could deny their players and management a place at Hampden on March 17 after the grief that continually gets shovelled their way?

They came here with boys on the teamsheet who aren’t even household names in their own houses — Fraser Mullen, Callum Tapping and Liverpool loanee Michael Ngoo for three — but they dug in and they rode their luck. And, in the end, they held their nerve.

And all five of their penalty kicks would have beaten two goalkeepers.

More than anything, they stuck together and kept their shape after midfielder Scott Robinson got himself sent off late in normal time for a brainless, two-footed lunge at Caley Thistle right-back David Raven.

Their reward is a return to the national stadium 10 months after humping Hibs 5-1 to lift the Scottish Cup — and, crucially, a turnstile windfall that should see them over the hump to the end of this season.

Boss John McGlynn deserves to lead them out on the big occasion as reward for the dignity with which he’s carried out his duties and confidence he’s instilled in so many rookies as the experienced hands are taken away one by one.

Those rookies will love every minute of an opportunity this early in their careers some don’t get if they play until they’re 40.

Their huge support — they had close on 14,000 out of the 16,326 here yesterday — will lap up another chance to march on Glasgow and have a ball.

As for Terry Butcher and his distraught gang?

McKay summed them up when he said: “We’ve lost only three games all season and we didn’t lose here, we drew 1-1 and went out on penalties. It’s good that the games keep coming around quickly because we can’t wait to get back out there.”

With an attitude like that, they’ll be back. They’ve shown in the league this season that they’re more than decent and they continue to get better.

If only we could say the same about the standard of refereeing. Because if we’re to finish with a word on whistler Euan Norris, it would simply be: stinking.

He should have sent off Caley skipper Foran for a reckless charge into Jamie Walker after he’d already been booked.

He enraged both benches by constantly giving decisions the opposite way to how everyone else saw them.

And had McKay tapped THAT chance home?

Norris would have needed a police escort out of town. That’s how far offside Shane Sutherland looked as he bore down on goal.

But like Hearts the officials got away with it in the end.

What a crying shame for a talented young striker that he can’t say the same.